Sir, – It was with considerable dismay and sadness that I learned of the death of Sunday Timesjournalist, Marie Colvin and her French photographer colleague, Remi Ochlik during the Syrian government's bombardment of the beleaguered city of Homs.
She died doing what she loved and what she firmly believed in: bringing the reality of life for ordinary people caught in a conflict to international attention. This is what she was doing in Homs, and is why she paid the ultimate price.
Over the years, she had covered conflicts in Bosnia, Zimbabwe, Chechnya and in Sri Lanka, where she lost an eye after stepping on a land mine. Despite this incredibly debilitating injury, she resolved to go on reporting from the world’s most dangerous conflicts.
Her most recent dispatches about what was happening to ordinary Syrians were among the most harrowing I have ever heard and put paid to the claim disseminated by the Syrian government that it is fighting a war against “terrorists”.
I had the good fortune to meet Marie Colvin several times in East Timor in 1999 as the Indonesian military and its hired militias set about systematically destroying the impoverished island and deporting its population following the overwhelming vote for independence.
What impressed me most was utter determination to stay on and defy the Indonesian military, which like the Syrian government now, didn’t want its violence against civilians exposed to world attention. Indeed it was her resolute determination to stay on in the besieged UN compound and report on the plight of the 1,500 Timorese seeking refuge there that galvanised other journalists into staying.
Colvin’s dispatches from Dili, played a considerable role in pressuring the international community into action, thereby helping to save the lives of the trapped Timorese in the UN compound.
Let us hope that her death helps galvanise the international community into a more united, concerted effort to pressure the Assad regime to stop slaughtering its own citizens, thereby saving the lives of thousands of Syrians.
I cannot think of a more fitting tribute to her life and work. – Yours, etc,